Update: E3 Not Completely Dead…But It Might As Well Be

Yesterday it was announced that the ESA was officially sticking a fork in the popular E3 Expo.

We were bummed to say the least, but there was a lot of talk that the Expo might return next year – although in a much altered form. Well, today some light was shed on just what that “altered form” might look like.

ESA President Doug Lowenstein has revealed that the name of next year’s E3 will be changed to the much hipper “E3 Media Festival.” However, the use of the word “festival” will, in this case, refer to a bunch of dorks hanging out in a couple of Los Angeles hotels.

That’s right – say goodbye to the Los Angeles Convention Center and hello to Best Western. Naturally, this means a drastically reduced attendance – around 5,000 to be precise. That will be down from 60,000 in 2006.

The “festival” will also be moved to July in an attempt to give publishers more time to work on products before unveiling them.

If all of this sounds exceedingly lame, you are not alone. E3 and Comic-Con were the two conventions that nerds everywhere could get really excited about. Now it seems that E3 can be safely dropped from that list.